Abstract
The study assessed the legal and international challenges of business incomeVoluntary tax compliance in Lagos Revenue Authority. There is fail of business income voluntary tax compliance challenge identifies by the taxpayers. Due to this, non-existence of clear procedures for filling returns is not independently studied. The study employed descriptive research methodology and both qualitative and quantitative research approach were adopted for the study. To conduct the study the primary data were gathered from taxpayers and tax officers. The sampling technique employees both Random sampling and Stratified Sampling and questionnaires were distributed to 24 employees and 279 representative taxpayers. The study identified Challenges of procedure for filing and submitting returns, problem with the preparation of tax return and timely submitting, Challenges of tax compliance strategy, absence of adequate and well trained staff, problem with self-assessment by tax payers, tax education and difficulty in applying the tax law and regulation. The study identified problems like the Procedure of the business income tax became challenge to the voluntary tax compliance , the tax authority and the tax payers are not complying voluntary tax strategies and that is reduce the tax performance and Business tax income assessment and collection is affected by tax audit practices and the tax audit is not effective. For better income voluntary tax compliance, the authority should make the tax assessment procedure fair and be improved in making understandable, to make regular interaction with tax payers and providing training on business income tax laws and tax returns to create awareness and improve tax audit by submittal of timely returns and paying the provisional assessment willingly.Â
CHAPTER ONE
Introduction
The chapter is devoted to the review of related literature and method used in collecting data on the topic of study. It is expected that in the course of this review the concept of taxation would be defined and explained with special interest on the personal income tax administration in Nigeria.
According to Chartered Institute of Taxation of Nigeria Tax guide and Statutes, Nigerian tax law is purely statutory, the tax system thus features a wide mixed range of statutes by which various governments in the country seek to charge and collect revenue for public expenditure. Of these, the most widely based are income taxation. The personal income tax act makes provision for the country, adding that liability to personal income tax in Nigeria does not depend on the domicile or nationality of the tax payer (Abdulrazaq, 2002)
1.1 Background of The Study The importance of taxation in the activities of any government cannot be overemphasized. The world over, taxes is one major source of government revenue, however, not every national government have been able to effectively exploit this great opportunity of revenue generation. This can be attributed to a number of reasons including the system of taxation; tax legislation; tax administration and policy issues; over reliance on other sources of revenue (such as foreign aid and grants); corrupt practices in the system; especially as it relates to the system of tax collection and behaviour of citizens towards tax payment; and ease of tax payment. The willingness to pay tax, which may depend on the other aforementioned issues in tax-revenue generation, remains a key taxation-challenge in Nigeria. In the ease of tax payment, evidence from the World Bank Doing Business Report 2011 and 2012, shows that Nigeria ranked 109 and 138, respectively, out of 183 countries; in Sub-Saharan Africa, it ranked 27 out of 46 countries. This result is, despite some improvements the government has made to the tax system in the recent past. The Federal Inland Revenue Service (FIRS), for instance, which was first established as an operational arm of the Federal Board of Inland Revenue (FBIR) in 1993 but autonomous in 2007, was saddled with the responsibility of controlling and administering different taxes as well as accounting for all taxes collected. Another innovation by the government is the Tax Identification Number (TIN) programme, which has objective of carrying out a successful rollout and implementation of TIN for Nigeria. The system developed a relational database linked to all relevant stakeholders in Nigerian tax administration. There is also the Joint Tax Board (JTB), amongst others, which are set up to address problems of the tax policies and its implementation, tax collection, and the taxpayers compliance in the country.
